A Hundred Campaign Ads Before the Election
by firefox b
Summary: A revisitation of the Twilight Zone story "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim," with slight updates to the current day.


Narrator: A _handful of American pioneers in 1847 have made a detour in time, and found themselves one afternoon on the cusp of the of the future in 2016. Our story is called "A Hundred Campaign Outrages Over the Rim," and believe me, it's quite a view..._

Charlie: "Gee, Chris, we've been wandering westward from Ohio for about a year now. We've known all kinds of rotten weather, politically incorrect Native Americans don't seem to like us, we're hungry, we're thirsty, your kid is deathly ill, and we can't seem to even bring in th internet, being that it's 1847 and all. What do you say we pack it In, and head back?"

Chris: "Nag, nag, nag! Charlie, you're really John Astin, and in a few years you'll be cast as Gomez Addams. Tell you what, I'll wander over that rim 100 yards in the distance, and maybe find us some water and other sustenance."

Charlie: "OK, but bring us some pizza, and maybe a bag of chips."

Martha Horn: "I'm just your wife, so I guess I don't have a say in this.-Ha! I might as well dream about a woman someday becoming president.

(Chris wanders over the Rim, and to his amazement sees power lines and a highway, where an eighteen-wheeler nearly runs him down. He falls down barely off the road, and a bullet from his own rifle grades his arm. Dazed and conducted, Chris wanders on, pursuing a sign for _Joe's Airflite Cafe_. Finding the establishment, the pioneer passes by signs affixed that say _Truckers Welcome_ , and _Open All Night._ Looking dazed and bewildered, this man out of his own time encounters _Joe,_ the owner of the establishment, who talks briefly to the strange, oddly-dressed man, and noticing his bullet graze, takes him inside the cafe for medical attention from his wife Mary Lou, a former nurse's aide.)

Mary Lou: _(Cleans Christian's wound and gives him some penicillin pills to guard against infection)_

Chris: "You say that this medicine is good for sickness? I've got an awfully sick boy back at the wagon train."

Joe: "Wagon train? Did you get hit on the head when you hurt your arm? What year do you think this is?"

Chris: "Why, 1847!"

Joe: "Listen, a friend of mine who's a doctor could look at you and see what's going on here. Wait in this rear room, and let him take a look at you."

 _(_ We see the doctor enter the rear room. Some time later, he emerges to talk to Joe regarding Chris' condition)

Doctor: "Well, he's malnourished, but otherwise a pretty good specimen. That business of his about being from 1847 appears to be a delusion, but of the purest form. He talked about his son to me, and the symptoms suggest pneumonia. Listen, I'm just a GP, but we should have this guy looked at by a psychiatrist."

Chris: (emerges from back room, holding a volume of an encyclopedia in which he's looked up his son's name) "The book says that my son's going to grow up to be a doctor, and save a lot of lives. Now I know why I'm here...I've been sent here for a purpose!"

(Chris observes a television set mounted on the wall showing a newscast covering the Hillary Clinton campaign) "That box that's talking...what kind of enchantment is that? And who's that woman talking in the box?!"

Joe: "Calm down, that's just a television set. And the woman is Hillary Clinton, you know, the lady who's running for president..."

Chris: (listening briefly to the television) "A woman...running for president! Imagine that!"

Doctor: "Listen Chris, we want you to come with us so we can help you..."

Chris: "No! My boy's real sick! I gotta get back to the wagons!" (grabs vial of penicillin pills, his rifle, and pushes past the doctor and Joe out through the door. Out in the wastelands and pursued by Joe and a police officer, he drops his rifle but staggers back over the rim, where it is again...1847! Chris sees his three wagons and the people traveling with him, who perceive that he has been gone only a short while. Looking back over the rim, there is now no sign of any development, just sand and sage grass.)

Chris: (to Martha Horn, who is dabbing a cloth on her son's feverish brow) "Here! Give him two of these pills! He's going to be all right."

Martha: "What did you find, Chris?"

Chris: "There's a whole lot on the other side of that rim...and we made it happen!"

(On the other side of the rim in the year 2016, Joe and the police officer have returned to the Cafe bearing the stranger's rifle, the wood elements of which crumble to the touch as if it has been lying exposed to the elements for over a hundred years. Meanwhile, back in the year 1847, a wagon train slowing begins to head west again to California.)

Chris: "We're going to make it to California, Martha...and I know we're going to do it! I heard some woman say that we're stronger together. And some day, we're going to have a woman president!"

Martha: "Oh Chris, you've been walking out in the sun too long!"

(...and the wagon wheels of the small caravan creaked slowly westward.)


End file.
